As shown in FIG. 10, for improving a current collection efficiency of a solar cell element 50, in general, a large number of linear current collector electrodes 52 are arranged at regular intervals on a semiconductor substrate 51 that forms the solar cell element 50.
It is necessary that an impurity element is doped into the semiconductor substrate 51 during preparation of the solar cell element 50. In this case, depending on manufacturing conditions, a situation may occur in which, for example, the amount of heat applied to an outside part of a middle part R1 of one main surface of the semiconductor substrate 51 is larger than the amount of heat applied to the middle part R1 so that a large amount of impurity element is contained in the outside part. That is, in FIG. 10, the amount of impurity element contained in both end parts R2 and R3 outside the middle part R1 may be larger as compared with the middle part R1.
In such a situation, in the middle part R1 of a surface of the semiconductor substrate 51, a carrier collection (current collection) tends to be insufficient, and improvement in a power generation efficiency of a solar cell element cannot be expected.
If the number of current collector electrodes 52 arranged on the semiconductor substrate 51 increases at regular intervals, the current collection efficiency of the solar cell element 50 can be improved. However, this shortens a distance between neighboring current collector electrodes. Therefore, in a case where a plurality of segmented solar cell elements obtained by segmenting the solar cell element 50 (for example, see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2000-16490), the current collector electrode 52 and a dividing position (dividing line 8) may overlap each other, as shown in FIG. 10. This may cause an adverse effect on output characteristics of the segmented solar cell element, such as deterioration of an output thereof.
Thus, a solar cell element that promise an improvement in the power generation efficiency and a segmented solar cell element that causes a less influence on the output characteristics have been demanded, and thus a solar cell module and an electronic appliance including such a solar cell element or such a segmented solar cell element have been demanded.